I should have seen it coming. One of the greatest marketing opportunities is catering to the nostalgia of aging boomers; hence retro Mustangs and Camaros. And how many of them either had a Winnebago in their family, or took a trip in one, or just saw them everywhere in the late 60s and 70s? The Winnebago Tribute allows you to relive that experience, for some $85k ($99k list, which presumably nobody ever pays on ridiculously over-inflated RV MSRPs).
It’s really just a thinly disguised Itasca 26′ coach; the “eyebrow” is just tacked on, unlike the bunk area of yore (1968 model above). But then just about nobody takes these out with kids anyway; it’s for oldsters reliving their memories (or longings), for a price.
The best thing about it? It doesn’t have the horrible swirling graphics that every other motorcoach or trailer inevitably has these days (Airstream excepted). Can we finally get on with that look, after some 20 or more years?
I don’t know if I want one but I love it! If I was in the market and the overall size was right I’d seriously consider this just for the style aspect, it looks so happy like a puppy.
Looks like the RV the country music band drove in the “Blues Brothers”.
Oh, we got both kinds, we got country and western.
Not for me thanks, I had all the camping I ever wanted when I was in the Army National Guard. Although, at the time, any RV would have been better than sleeping on the ground.
+1 At least I got to sleep in the M37 3/4 ton truck we were still using when it was raining. Early morning guard duty also pretty well did me in for squirrel hunting too.
Let’s sing ‘Rawhide’ 27 times.
RAWHIDE
Nope.
Ugly then; ugly now.
Pass the barf bag please.
+1 🙂
As a vintage camper owner and enthusiast, this is interesting, but I’d much rather have the original.
Shasta released slightly less than 2000 remakes of their 1961 AirFlyte 16′ campers this past year. I’d take one of those long before the Winnie, since they are a little more true to the original.
Well dang it looks cool, but the eyebrow is obviously tacked on and so much for aerodynamics. I dunno about swirly grahpics, they seem alright except for some that are not. Wish I had gone to the RV show in Portland, this might have been there.
Love it! Aerodynamics, oh well, it’s a brick anyway. I do like the retro look and it does have a different look than just about everything else out there. Good job for sensing the opportunity here.
And that’s a good point–it seems like years ago, you’d find families with RVs much more commonly than now. Today they seem to be exclusively the province of mobile retirees, so if you do find one that contains any kids, they’re probably the grandchildren of the owners. The fact that an RV can easily cost as much new as a small house probably has something to do with it…hand in hand with the ratio of new car prices to average income though.
Out here in SoCal, the family motorhome has been mostly replaced by an F250 pulling a trailer – typically a “toy hauler”, where the front half may have RV amenities like a kitchen and beds, but the whole back folds down as a ramp to get the quads or motorcycles inside. (Actually, come to think of it, they’re rather like the team trailers from ’60s motorsports. Just paint it red with a prancing horse.)
I also wonder how much the move back to the cities and into denser housing has to do with it. A larger and larger percentage of RVs I see lately have been loudly labeled as rentals, which circumvent the question of where to store the beast when you’re not using it.
That’s a good point too. I was watching an episode of the “House Hunters” TV program on HGTV recently where one of the desired features of the house was enough space to store an RV. I don’t recall whether or not that made it into the chosen property, but it was a difficult request to accommodate. Plus many HOAs probably have rules about such things being kept in view of the street so you not only need the sheer space to store it, but it has to be behind a high wall or within a very large garage.
Holy Smokes! A “routine” RV that now sports a 100K MSRP? Not long ago that was the number for the kind of bus motor coaches that traveling entertainers use.
It is kind of cool, but not $100,000 cool.
Give that one a couple of years, the way RV’s depreciate it’ll be readily affordable before you know it.
You should price out a Newell then! We just sold our 40 feet of diesel happiness for one tenth of its new price….mind you it was 20 years old, but still…and no, we didn’t buy it new! Glad to see no loud graphics on the Winnie….it’s about time, I was getting headaches every time one drove by!
Well, when you consider that lots of pickups are selling for well over $50k, that kind of puts it in perspective. $85k seems almost a bargain in comparison.
I’m surprised it doesn’t have slide-outs, I think the market expects/demands them these days.
It does have one, on the other side, where they usually are (unless on both sides).
Thanks for the correction Phil, I had only seen photos of the 26A base model without slide-outs, and did not know about the top of the line models with slide-outs.
I’ll take the ’68, please. 🙂
I’ve heard from people who have owned them, however, that they’re more fun in theory than in practice.
Neither appeal to me for any reason. Rather have a BMW Vixen if I must go the RV route.
Last summer I was entering the highway when a vixen caught my eye. I tried very very hard to catch it but my old tow truck was limited to 105kmh. The first one I’d seen on this coast since I moved back in 03.
I always preferred motel camping…but now you have to worry about bedbugs, I guess….: )
I know that people love these things, but they have always escaped me. The math just doesn’t work for me on any level. I hope the the curmudgeon that I am isn’t TOO obvious, but:
First there is the upfront cost of purchase… You can get quite a few pretty darn nice hotel rooms for that cost. Then there’s the nightly ‘hookup fee” for electricity, water, etc ( do they include cable in that fee?). It runs around $50 a night in Williamsburg Va (I just double checked) although it may be cheaper elsewhere. Then, there’s gas/diesel mileage. I can’t find any quick reliable numbers, so I’ll just SWAG around 15 on the highway. FWIW it’s a 2900 mile round trip to Yellowstone National Park. You do the math. In your math, don’t forget to include the cost of an ‘escape pad’ to tow behind you. There’s nothing more annoying than having set up, hooked up, and leveled and then finding out you’re out of (insert milk, eggs, smokes, chocolate here) and having to do without or tear down, so the tow-baby is a must.
Driving is always a joy in these too, particularly on a mountain road where you find the one RV in the universe that is slower uphill than yours is in front of you. Parking them is not so bad except for the long term bit ‘home between trips’ times where you either park it next to the house and pretend it’s not there or rent a place somewhere, ideally with plenty of barbed wire around it.
Finally, you have to cook, clean, and wash, AND take out the trash while on vacation
TL/DR: I don’t get it.
There are different ways to do it. I paid $1200 for my ’77 Chinook, and we hardly ever paid a camping fee, except when we were on the beach in Mexico and in National Parks. Otherwise we avoid campgrounds like the plague. And RV parks? Never been in one.
Out here in the West there are endless National Forest and BLM lands where one can get away from it all, and park/camp for free (legally). Some of my happiest times in the past ten years have been in our camper, out in the desert, remote mountains, and desolate beaches.
The typical RV lifestyle (big expensive rigs and RV parks) has absolutely zero appeal. I’d much rather stay home than do that.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/auto-biography/glacier-and-bust-zen-and-the-art-of-roadside-repairs/
Read Charles Kuralt’s autobiography for details on what it was like traveling in vintage RVs. Pure misery.
Although my family never owned a Winnebago, I’m sure we’ve ridden in at least a couple of them when I was a boy. I’ve never been a fan of either Winnebago, the vintage Winnebago, or the retro. I don’t mind its shape overall, I’ve just never liked its face, the front end of the RV. I find neither very attractive.
The concept of an RV is terrific. The actuality is a bit different.
Lokki hit the nail on the head; motel camping is always preferable. The real deal killer Lokki didn’t mention – having to deal with the brown water hose. Sorry, but after I flush I do not care to revisit it again.
However, if I were ever inclined to purchase an RV, it would be a pull-behind. That way I can have a vehicle while camping as well as use of said vehicle the rest of the year. Plus, when I tire of it, there is a much bigger market for a used F-250 than there is a used RV.
I’d much prefer a fully converted Flxible Clipper with A/C. Preferably Cummins powered with an Allison transmission. If I was going to do it, I’d go all-out while keeping it retro.
……yeah. I’ll keep dreaming.
If you can do at least some of the conversion work yourself, it would surely cost less to do a coach than to pay for the Winny.
Random encounter with the old style one of these: I spent a night in Marquette Kansas sleeping in a very dilapidated one of these in the front yard of a friendly biker/bar owner. The backstory is that we were riding our old motorcycles across the US in the summer of 2008 (a pair of Yamaha 500 twins with the troublesome 8 valve heads, 81 CX500 with a burned out stator, 77 KZ650 with a rectifier on the fritz, 1981 Seca 750) Mind you all of these things broke as we were riding, but they were anticipated and dealt with using tools and spare parts we had packed along for the trip.
We were being chased by what turned out to be a tornado, and our new friend “Grizz” offered up his winnebago instead of us spending the night in tents in the local state park. Luckily we only got hail, the next town over, Salina KS was not so lucky.
Spent the next day diagnosing low compression on my 77 XS500, turned out to be junked up valve seats that my brother cleaned up with some crest toothpaste mixed with sand off the ground. Grizz pulled his Electra Glide out of his shed to let us work on the Yamaha. Had her all buttoned back up by midnight, running strong as ever. Those were the nicest, most salt of the Earth people I have ever met.
Real bikers are like that.
“The best thing about it? It doesn’t have the horrible swirling graphics that every other motorcoach or trailer inevitably has these days (Airstream excepted). Can we finally get on with that look, after some 20 or more years?”
Yes!
Classic late sixties’ removal truck. For that Winnebago vacation-feeling while on the job.
(Photo courtesy oudedaf.nl)
Luton peak is my favourite furniture body to convert but theyve all be scrapped.
There are lots of 10-15 year old coaches to convert here in Europe (and I assume in NZ also) if that’s your thing. The way I see it those mobile home (or a converted coach) make sense only if you regularly race a car or a bike – you can either have the car/bike at the back with sleeping quarters at the front or tow a transporter trailer. Very handy on race weekends.
This type of truck was called a tapissière. A completely integrated body and cab, so from a distance they looked like a big RV. These were used to haul furniture and as removal trucks. I remember them well, since there were a lot of furniture manufacturers in my region.
Here’s an older one, a (real) woody.
(Photo courtesy: Archief Maas en Waalse automobiel historie)
Lots more here, at the bottom of the page: http://www.hgvmaasenwaal.nl/index.php?id=137
When I was younger, I hated motorhomes with a passion. Now I wish I could have one. But even if I could afford to buy one, I could never afford enough gas to actually go anywhere in it. AZ is a haven for “winter visitors” and there are what seem like millions of motorhomes here, many towing expensive cars/trucks. I never understood just how people could afford to drive these things. with fuel prices being what they are. The gas would cost more than the motorhome. Seems like it would be cheaper to buy a house here, and fly out for the winter. If I had a motorhome, I would want to keep it on the road, and go out and spend a few years exploring the country.
I bought a ’77 Dodge Chinook in 2004 for $1200. We put almost 40k miles on it traveling all over the West and into Baja. I still have it, but it’s getting a bit long on tooth. My total investment in it is about $2500-2700 (purchase price, new exhaust, one new exhaust manifold, and some interior redecorating). It gets 11-12 mpg.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/auto-biography/glacier-and-bust-zen-and-the-art-of-roadside-repairs/
That is pretty cheap RVing, Paul, but I assume you did the repairs and upgrades yourself? I certainly can and would. But not all of us have the required skills and tools. And if you actually have to pay someone to work on it, it can get expensive real fast. And do you keep a case of ballast resistors in your Dodge at all times? 🙂
Nice amount of window glass you’ve got on that Chinook. Fairly panoramic. Damn near Cinemascope in its aspect ratio. Much more generous glassage than the old Winnebago. Or the new-old Winnebago. Both Winnies are notably lacking in the greenhouse department; possessing only slightly more lookout opportunities than a cargo van. Which, in vehicles expressly designed for vacationing and sightseeing, is an incredible and inexcusable oversight. But then what do you expect from people who penned a body design that makes a 1950s bread van look like a miracle of aerodynamics.
BTW, has anyone seen pix of the interior of this new-old Winnie? Are the kitchen fitments etc any less hideous than the faux-knotty-pine VFW Hall/biker-bar/small-town dentist-office decor and other unintentional kitsch that has always been the standard aesthetic of Winnebago (and most other RV makers for that matter)?
Never could afford such a thing. I’m lower middle-class but RVs are waaaayy beyond my reach. I can only dream. I refuse to borrow money to buy leisure items, so that’s also a factor. Hmm….maybe when I’m 85???
These things were all over the place in the late 60’s and through the 70’s. The Winnebago Brave series was the more affordable model, the family had a new 72. Onan generator and roof air were the only options. We did a cross country family trip in 72, gas was cheap and motorhomes, travel trailers, pickups with huge cabover campers and converted vans were common, most full of young families. The gas prices are what did these in, it was no longer an affordable way to vacation unless you stayed close to home. This Winnie is kinda cool looking. Since I have a pickup, I would probably get a trailer instead if the urge struck me.
Did they have to go retro on the coefficient of drag, too?
Needs more beige but I like it. Aerodynamics are ugly
Good thing the original Winnie sacrificed aerodynamics in favor of beauty. 🙂
Nowadays – the Airstream is really in – the factory can’t keep up with orders for new ones. What is the appeal of these shiny trailers, I wonder.
Getting back to the featured Winnie, what’s under the hood?
Ford Triton V10. Pretty much ubiquitous in all the low-mid range motorhomes these days.